


Distant Shadow - Poisoned Heart

by Alexej_Axis



Category: Monsterhearts (Roleplaying Game), Original Work
Genre: Angst, Body Dysphoria, Body Horror, Gender Dysphoria, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Multi, Suicide Attempt, Transgender
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-09 23:04:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19485838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alexej_Axis/pseuds/Alexej_Axis
Summary: Ishikawa Yuu is a teenager like any other - he's got problems. Big problems. And nobody ever listens to him.His life spun out of control as he took his uncle's gun to his own head to make a point and eventually try and kill himself. Now that didn't work out for him, and he's been submitted to a mental health hospital where he spends his days drugged and forgotten.One might think he's in need of a friend......and fate provides.





	1. Act 1 Y[o]u

**Author's Note:**

> Yuu is my Monsterherts character.  
> He's an FTM trans*gender kid of Japanese/American origin who lives in Kingston, NY in 2019.  
> This story concludes the events that lead to his [un]fortunate liaison with a demon and make him the Infernal he is today.  
> If you want to read more about Yuu's adventures, you can do so [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18011453/chapters/42554069), unfortunately, the rest of his story is only available in German right now, but if you would like to see me translate it, just drop me a line and leave some kudos. :)
> 
> Song: [My Body is a Cage](https://youtu.be/dTZQ2IB_x7c) \- by Peter Gabriel

**Act 1: Y[o]u**

When our eyes met for the first time, it was from an odd angle. 

Sideways, my face pinned to the mattress by a meaty hand.

I had to look up at you, but I couldn’t turn my head.

You looked through the small barred window in that door that was shedding cream-colored paint and was rusty at the hinges. That door in that room that was so familiar to me like the inside of a womb to a stillborn. 

Your lank, loose, dark hair came down to your collar bones, and I hated it. It was aligning with the bars from behind which you stared at me with those piercing red eyes; red from the drugs and the crying and the sleepless nights.

I remember I did try to lift my hand, slowly, to reach out until the restraints held me back.

And you vanished.

As if you had never been there.

But I knew it was real. 

I knew you would change my life. 

Then a nurse opened the door that was shedding cream-colored paint, and with the seal broken, I heard myself scream for the first time; a hoarse, mindless cacophony, echoing through the empty hallway. Like the wailing of a dying animal. My throat was sore and I had been at it for hours.

“Sleep,” the doctor said. And as the syringe broke my skin, my body obeyed her command.

But my spirit didn’t.

My mind went places.

I was captivated by your eyes, the darkness within and the shadows dancing across your face. Captivated beyond the limitations of this small and fragile consciousness.

I knew it was real. 

I knew it was something.

Everything. 

My way out.

The drugs made it hard at first.

Hard to focus, to cling to it, to believe that I had indeed seen you there. 

The drugs made it hard to have any coherent thought. I must admit I underestimated the effect this would have on me. 

Where did I go wrong? When did I get so weak? How did I end up being confined to this prison that was [a body] in the first place?

But the longer I was here, the less questions I had. The drugs made me forget about the time I was different.

At least for a while.

Made me complacent. 

It is peculiar how you simply react, become the epitome of a push-over. Just sitting there, drooling and waiting until someone gives you an order. And then the impulse to simply comply is so strong because you have no train of thought that could interfere.

Impulse. Reaction.

Request. Compliance.

Supply. Demand.

Sometimes I didn’t know which was which. It’s a rhythm that comes easy to me I must admit. You’d be surprised.

I sure was.

I was more susceptible to the conditioning than I would have imagined. Something inside of me is very savage, very simple. 

Trade. Exchange. 

Wish. Price. 

Prayer. Punishment. 

Simple Rules. An easy game, as old as time. 

When I realized I was looking forward to them asking me to sit up. Asking me to open my mouth. Swallow. Drink. Eat. Sleep.

Even salivating at the thought.

Wait!

A thought!

I think it was around that time where I noticed I was actually looking forward to being told to do ANYTHING, so I could be SOMETHING, when I slowly got a grip on my reality again.

Maybe because they changed the drugs.

Maybe because I saw you looking at me again.

You.

YOU reminded me, that simple rules are there to be broken. Wishes are there to be exploited. Prayers to be answered with mischief - and I was the King of fortune and cheating. 

It was in the yard of the mental institution they held us captive in. You where standing next to a tree, your long raven-black hair covering your face like a funeral veil. 

I sat there, contemplating my very unfortunate situation for a moment. How did I end up here? From a prison to another prison, it doesn’t take much more than some bad decisions I guess. Life Choices.

Some bad luck.

And a curse. 

I used to be so different once, when I came to this country. Before I grew up. When I was still shaping reality around me and others would believe in me and the stories I told.

And even more importantly - when others told stories about me.

When I had full control over this body I inhabited, when it did obey my every whim and my imagination was the only limitation of my world.

I could do everything.

And then, suddenly, things changed.

I changed.

The weight of the world was coming down on me and wherever I looked, people told me I am not the one I thought I was. And my flesh didn’t obey me either. It grew soft and lumpy, in all the wrong places and people would only believe in what they saw, not in what I was.

I faded until I almost vanished. I needed to get out of this body.

The hunger became unbearable.

A sacrifice was made.

But I was too weak. The ritual failed.

And now I’m here.

If I had known how much the drugs would affect my situation, I would have been more careful. I would have ended it sooner. I would have done it right.

But I had been arrogant.

Foolish.

Full of myself.

Now I was stuck in this body which was again stuck in this prison and was losing the grip on my true self by the minute. This weak flesh, with this soft, smooth skin, and dull eyes - it made me sick to my stomach to be stuck in here.

I needed to get out! 

I clawed at my skin each night with my useless fragile fingers, so I was red and sore.

I screamed from the top of my lungs with my shrieking, weak voice, but I couldn’t reach out.

I wanted so badly to cut off these useless and disfiguring lumps of flesh and grow, be my strongest self, not confined to this prison of fat and bones that wasn’t me.

I refused to listen when they called me names they’d given me that had nothing to do with who I was, tried to toss away the labels they attached to me but over time, they started to define me...

Until I couldn’t fight it anymore.

I had almost given up, this world broke me; eradicated my spirit until it was merely a thin shadow of my former self.

But then I saw you.

And when our eyes met in the yard, it struck me like an epiphany.

You were real! 

And you were the same.

Your skin cut and bruised by your own hand; dried blood under your fingernails and cheeks wet from a constant flow of salty tears; with red nose and pale lips... That's how you stood before me. But your eyes…

...your eyes were the most fierce, driven, passionate thing I had ever seen. Dark ponds, shiny and volatile, mirroring your hate for this godforsaken world. Spirals despising the very essence of humankind. 

That power and darkness that I found when our eyes met, it filled me with ecstasy and longing.

It felt like home.

I was still too weak to approach you back then, but my spirit had returned.

I am not alone.

From here on out, you occupied my every thought. I had a goal now, I had to meet you. I had to speak to you. I had to… know you.

With my spirit rekindled, it became easier to drag myself up; be compliant with their orders while not being complacent. The ineffable plan had formed in my soul. I had a plan again! 

It was all for a greater good.

I only had to pull through without forgetting myself until I found you!

And eventually, I would.

“Now everybody introduce themselves to our newest member to weekly group therapy,” the doctor said.

I didn’t listen to what she or anyone else said.

They didn’t matter.

My eyes were fixed on your thin, bloodless lips, pressed together with the anger and hate of a lifetime of fear, oppression and guilt. I was obsessed with your posture that was defiant and reckless at the same time, that spoke of a weak body and an invincible personality, only held back by shame. Someone who was bruised, battered and broken, sick and done - but was too strong to just die. 

And I could tell you tried. 

I saw it in your eyes that you had them set on the other side.

I could tell everyone had given up on you.

Hat you were stuck and dumped in this place just like me.

That nobody could SEE you for what you were...

The tragedy behind your dark eye, this endless abyss that gave me life. That I wanted to fill so badly...

My obsession became love when I heard you speak for the first time.

“I’m Ishikawa Yuu. And I’m dead inside.”

I didn’t feel how I lifted myself up and moved towards you, I just found myself kneeling in front of you, - you were so small and fragile in that chair, - and looking at you eye-to-eye when I heard my body speak with what wasn’t my true voice, “Nice to meet you, Yuu. I’m Yudas.”

  
But I was certain by the shiver that ran over your skin, you heard me whisper: **“I AM DELigHTeD aNd humBLEd wE mEEt, fiNalLY MAstEr. My naMe Is YACHALISsss, aND I aM HerE tO fiLL THe VOiD in YoUr SOuL.”**


	2. Act 2: Me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song: [Billy Jupp - You Must Run](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swXevG93Ya4) and [Help Us](https://youtu.be/2Y2eKFV_8zc?list=RDOVQhAhFFHTA).

When you proposed to me, went down on your knees and all, I was startled at first. Angry. It made me want to spit in your face. Propose to me, really? Like a man does propose to a woman?

So you don’t get it either, huh?

Just another bastard who doesn’t see me.

I hated the world because it was blind.

I hated everyone on the planet for being indifferent to who I really am.

I wanted to die.

I failed at dying and was punished for it by society.

I got myself captured in this prison of mind and soul with little hope to ever escape with my heart intact.

I would have given my soul to escape.

And then I saw you on your knees, speaking words. And when that anger did knot up in my stomach, and acid ran into my mouth and I rolled it around at the tip of my tongue - I suddenly heard you speak with your second voice.

**“I aM DEligHTed And huMbLeD We diNAllY meET, MASTER. My nAmE iS YACHALIS, anD I aM HeRE to FILl tHe vOId in YOur SoUl.”**

_Master._

The first encounter was terrifying. 

You had been the one who had been screaming for hours in our cell block. I refuse to call it anything else. The St. Peter’s Home for the Mentally Ill and Deranged was nothing but a prison - and worse. It wasn’t a Hospital or a place for people to get better. It was a dead end for those not conformant enough with society to be kept around running freely.

And I guess after I took that cold, heavy metal from my uncle’s holster and pressed it against my temple, well intended to pull the trigger and paint the wall behind me pink with my brain, I did all it takes to classify as just that.

 _Deranged_.

I didn’t manage to end my life that day, but it scored me a second class trip on the train to an entirely different kind of oblivion.

Although the world had given up on me much earlier.

But what about you?

How did you end up here?

When the two strong nurses dragged your body out of your room, raging and thrashing about, I took a glimpse at your fine features, distorted and larger than life, right into the uncanny valley by an inhuman display of anger. An anger that was contagious. Like a beautiful disease.

Your spit, foaming at the mouth like a rabid animal, the reddened face, muscles almost tearing under the strain you put them under by _resisting,_ the nurses, your straitjacket and the world, - it all made me want to scream as well.

They put you in that room with the door that shed cream-coloured paint because it was rusty underneath and only held together by layers and layers of applied varnish. It felt like a good metaphor for everyone here.

We’re rotten inside, festering and foul, but the meds and the straitjackets and the therapy sessions are meant to glue us back together, fill the cracks in the surface and make us go on.

Like puppets on strings.

Pretending to be something we’re not.

Not being problems anymore.

But you, you clearly **were** a problem.

Your crazed eyes were red. First I thought it was the meds, a trick of the light or just my imagination. But I became entranced with your dark-red eyes from the moment I first saw you being put under in that room with the door that shed cream-coloured paint.

Some people might have mistaken them to be a dark and rich brown, but I knew what I had seen. Your eyes, they had a sparkle inside of them, faint, but true, like dying embers. 

And this glow was just illuminating a darkness that lead to something sinister, something creepy and very, very wrong. 

I should probably have run away as fast as I could, but where would I have escaped to? We were both trapped inside this mansion of madness, and the longer I clawed at the walls and my own flesh at night, the more pills they forced down my throat, the more I longed for your red eyes watching me at night. 

And you heeded the call.

What freaked me out at first, should become soothing over time; me, waking up from fever-infused dreams, catching only as much as the glimpse of your eyes on the walls.

When the red light faded, I thought it was my imagination.

But night after night, you kept watching me closer, a little longer, more intense.

A pair of eyes at first, then three, four, five, seven, a dozen eyes spread across the walls of my room in irregular patterns...

I wanted out of here. 

And so I fell right into you.

And you seemed to be the one insanely sane thing in here. 

After our eyes met that day, I was hooked. We were inevitably connected..

I idolized you. You became my beacon of desperate hope in this barren place were imagination was both a crime and the reason for all of your problems. I kept making up stories about who you were and how you ended up here and painted a picture of you as a man who could see me as who and what I really are. Someone who understands the violence and hatred and disgust inside of me.

You became my obsession.

Your voice in my head let me focus again when they forced the meds down my throat. You gave me the strength to endure, lie, wait, lurk, plan.

Your eyes in the darkness, watching me felt oddly flattering instead of an intrusion. Your acknowledgement of my true form when you touched me from the shadows made me ecstatic. 

You touched me like a man touched another man.

And as much as I wanted to dismiss it, I soon found myself watching **you** all the same. Looking out for you during dinner, or in the hallways, sneaking past your cell, trying to peak in and during our short passes walking the line outside; always harboring the sinking feeling that you were too far gone to ever talk to me. 

And suddenly there you were..

Right in front of me.

Kneeling.

Teasing me; disappointing me for a moment, there with your mundane, misleading impersonation of a human being. And then the mad whispers entering my brain when you spoke with your second voice, they brought back my spirit and the acid and the boiling anger. 

_Infected_.

You infected me with your anger, rekindling my spirit.

And when all of the bottled up wraith and disgust for the world finally erupted through your touch, I spat into your face.

And I laughed.

This singular act of rebellion and violence, it felt so good I was ecstatic.

I was ecstatic as the doctor bend my arms back and called for the nurse when I resisted; in tears of joy when I kicked you into your face and you fell backwards. They called me hysterical and dragged me away, screaming and kicking. But this time I anticipated the syringe breaking my skin. 

This time I would be the one in the room with the door that was shedding cream-colored paint and was rusty at the hinges.

And I welcomed it.

Because before they bend my head down and tied me up, I saw you smile and lick my spit and the blood running from your nose off your face, kneeling in serene bliss. The dying embers in your eye sockets lit up with fierce determination and rekindled the fire in my dying heart.

You had done it.

You infected me.

Gods, it felt SO good.

I knew no matter what they would do to me now, I would be able to fight back.

My anger had awakened and I knew you had spoken just for me.

You didn’t propose to a woman back there.

You had pledged yourself to me, acknowledging me as your master.

And from this day on, no matter what they did to me or for how long they locked me away, I knew I would hear your second voice again.

And I would make you mine.

“Miss Ishikawa, I have noticed your obsession with the patient who calls himself Yudas.”

I didn’t really listen to her, until she dropped your name. I had become really good at pretending to listen, though. The past couple of weeks after the incident had been rough, but never had I felt so in control of a situation. 

_‘The patient makes great progress in anger management therapy.’_ That’s what the doctor wrote on my file.

“Doctor Shelby, I don’t know who you are talking about. I apologize. Can you give me a little more context?” I was frantically scribbling mathematical formulas on my notepad. The one thing I could hardly deal with was boredom or being unoccupied with my own thoughts. Whenever they put me into solitary confinement, I played chess with you in my mind and your eyes on the walls. It was the only thing that kept me sane. I already had so many objectives of what to actually do with you once we met again, but teaching you how to play Shogi was among my top ten. Chess is such a simple game, way too simple for the both of us. I can’t wait to challenge you to a real duel of wit.

“Yuu.” 

I looked up and stopped scribbling. I knew she demanded my undivided attention when she called me by my first name. Like, with this condescending, motherly tone. Oh I hated it, but I had learned to play my part.

“Yes, Doctor Shelby, apologies,” I sat up straight and brushed my hair out of my face. “I am listening. I just don’t know who that person is.”

“Well,” she tilted her head, “I am talking about Henry Sullivan, aka Yudas, is what he wants to be called. The guy you had group therapy with two months ago that you attacked.”

“Oh THAT man,” I smiled apologetic, “I… I meant to apologize to him, but stuff from back then is a bit blurry. You said it yourself, Doctor, my rational brain was not functioning properly back then and my memory was suppressed by impulse-driven mechanics. But the meds I am getting now actually work quite well and I am better now.”

She lets out a sigh and taps her notepad for a long moment. I have learned to endure these moments without letting myself being fooled into elaborating on my position due to the display of impatience or hesitation on her part. I am past those shenanigans. I see right through her sleight of hand. 

“Alright,” she said, finally as I refuse to crumble under her stance of motherly disappointment. “Maybe you are right and it is time you did that. I think it might be good for your development.”

I nodded enthusiastically, but not TOO enthusiastically. Then I added, after a short, carefully timed hesitation, a finger raised to my lips, “He scares me, you know?”

Ah, there she is. She took the bait. 

She tried to hide it which shows me that this is a true emotion, but her ‘motherly stance’ softens and she actually displays a faint hint of sympathy here. I told her about my abusive uncle and unsupportive mother, my tyrant of a father and how I failed to protect my little sister from the religious zealousy of my family. And she bought right into it whenever I played my cards right, this disgusting spiel of mimicking a ‘suppressed adolescent female in development’.

It made my bile rally in my stomach. 

I didn’t know how long I I would be able to hold up my faint, oppressed smile, but eventually, she caved before it wore off.

“I understand, Yuu. And you know what? That’s probably the right reaction.”

 _Wait whut?_ I’m glad I managed to not say that out loud, but my expression might have changed slightly, considering how her eyes shifted right there. _Damnit._

“You know we were all very worried about you when you attacked him. It wasn’t a good idea to bring him into the therapy session to begin with, I knew that, but… You know we couldn’t just isolate him all the time. He had improved so much in his therapy sessions we thought we can risk it. And it is never healthy for a patient to be in solitary. That rarely makes anyone better. Quite the contrary. So we thought he might just come around when we added him to the group.”

“What… what did he do?” I didn’t have to pretend to be shaking this time. 

"He killed someone. And in comparison to you, he didn't just try. He succeeded."

I didn't take her bait. I didn't start arguing about my stance that suicide isn't murder yet again. More important things were at hand. We played the waiting game for a long moment.

Until, with a condescending, maternal sigh of disapproval, Doctor Shelby leaned forward in her Chesterfield chair, and as the leather had ceased to ache and creak under the weight of her emotional burden, she finally said: “I shouldn’t be telling you this as it is classified information about another patient; but I am making the call here to tell you about him. Most of it was in the papers anyways. You’re just a child and I can’t possible let you develop an obsession for someone like him.

“He’s a delusional schizophrenic drug addict with sociopathic tendencies and he is dangerous, Yuu. He thinks he’s possessed by a demon that tells him to do horrible things. And he killed a little girl. Just like you.”

Hot anger.

Festering bile.

Bitter saliva building in my mouth.

Raging hatred knotting up in my stomach.

The humiliation slammed into my face like a cell door.

I swallowed hard.

“I understand, Doctor Shelby,” I rasped under my breath, “I won’t get near him then.” and I looked down into my lap, breathing heavily. All that kept me insane was the glimpse of your eyes on the wall, faint, but watching.

“Good, because I can’t possible let you associate with someone like that. I have to apologize for even letting him near you this once, if anything. But like I said, he had gotten much better, recently, and we really thought we could try getting him in contact with other human beings again. But apparently, that wasn’t the case.

I heard the leather creak again, as I imagined her leaning back, self-confident now, that she had taught me a lesson and I had accepted defeat. All while I myself stared down on my white knuckles, grabbing the seam of my trousers so hard, I could feel the cloth bite into my skin.

“This was the last straw for him, though. My current assessment is, that he’s too far gone. Rest assured, you won’t see him again. You don’t need to be afraid, okay? And also, don’t fawn now. It was wrong of you to attack him, but I honestly just think you subconsciously reacted to his vile nature because you are a sensitive and very strong young woman. So don’t worry about it anymore.”

I couldn’t look at her.

I heard these mad whispers, your second voice, but so far away, it hurt. 

I knew what you were saying though.

Loud and clear I understood in my shivering heart:

**“YoU HAve tO FInD mE. FinD Me anD WE Will shoW hEr.”**


End file.
